Chapter Twenty-Three: Diddykins and Sweetie Darling

Harry sighed.

Dudley had insisted that they give Dobby and Kreacher a break by cleaning their bedroom at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Harry personally didn't see the point, but he decided to go along with it to please his cousin, though he had insisted on the right to grumble about it.

Hedwig's heartbreaking funeral the previous night was but a distant memory as they tidied the room in comfortable silence, and while Dudley may have been doing most of the actual work, Harry still liked to think that he was helping by standing around, looking gorgeous and giving the other boy something to look forward to once the work was done.

Besides, just watching Dudley clean was making Harry almost unbearably tired.

"I'm taking a break," Harry announced, sighing and swooning dramatically to the room in general and Dudley in particular. "My...scar is...starting to hurt again."

He was lying, of course, his scar was fine - at least, it was for the moment, anyway - but he knew that Dudley wouldn't question the excuse.

"Is it?" Dudley asked worriedly as he rushed over to Harry, fussing over him and pressing the back of his hand to Harry's forehead, as if his temperature had anything to do with whatever in Merlin's name was happening to Harry's scar.

Harry still wasn't sure what was wrong, but he was now absolutely positive that Dumbledore was behind it.

The old bastard.

"Well, that's all right, sweetie darling," Dudley said soothingly, "you just lie down and I'll finish up - we're almost done anyway, I just have to sort the laundry." He gave Harry a kiss on the cheek as he tucked him into bed and then went whistling back to work.

Harry still didn't know how to feel about the way Dudley had been doting on him ever since that first fateful night at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. From what he had observed of the way his aunt Petunia was constantly smothering her son with attention, he supposed this must be what it was like to be mothered - not that Harry would know, the only mothering he had ever experienced had happened before he was old enough to develop conscious thoughts and form memories, and so, sadly, the only true memory he had of his mother was from the night of her death.

Harry frowned, lost deep in thought as Dudley struggled to reach under the bed for Dobby's filthy rag. They'd had to lock Ron in the room he was sharing with Fred and George because he wouldn't leave the poor, naked House Elf alone after the burial, not that Dobby seemed to mind the attention, but still...it would be good to give Dobby his rag back - one less problem for Harry to worry about.

Dudley finally managed to reach the filthy rag and he pulled it out triumphantly, kissing Harry happily in celebration before placing it proudly on the pile of clothes to be laundered.

Harry couldn't help but wince at the kiss, though he made sure to do so behind Dudley's back, of course.

Because as nice as it could be to have Dudley take care of him, Harry just wasn't sure if he actually liked it. It rankled him somehow, this business of being mothered. And besides, Dudley's doting made him look and feel weak, and if there was ever a time when Harry could afford to appear weak, it sure as fuck wasn't now - not with thousands upon thousands of Muggles dying every day and whispers that the virus was now spreading through the wizarding world like wildfire.

Dolores Umbridge (hissssssssssss!) had been on the front page of the Daily Prophet again that morning, trying to relieve the panic that was beginning to ripple through Magical Britain by lying her toady face off - as always. She claimed that the illness that was sending wizards to St. Mungo's in alarmingly large numbers was a particularly communicable strain of "Werewolf Pox" that was "only" spreading to a "small subsection" of the wizarding world, and she had ordered the immediate extermination of all werewolves as a preventive measure.

Harry felt nauseous just thinking about it, so he turned his mind to another problem.

Hermione bloody Granger.

That morning at breakfast, the various members of The Secret Order of Harry's Army and Tonks (who had finished Hermione watching duty in time to eat a rushed breakfast and blow off some steam with them before having to fly to work at the Ministry) had a loud, angry discussion about Hermione.

Surprisingly, no one was on Hermione's side, but that was her own bloody fault.

Tonks was upset because Hermione had insisted on calling Tonks Nymphadora all night, even though she knew that Tonks preferred to just be called Tonks - being a Metamorphmagus and having no fixed gender, so no use or want for the gendered name Tonks' insufferable mother had saddled Tonks with as an infant.

It had taken Harry a little time to get used to this himself, never having met someone who was a Metamorphmagus before, but in getting to know Tonks, Harry could clearly see that being invalidated and called by the wrong name was just as much of a wound to Tonks as Harry's own scar was to him.

Somehow though, Hermione either couldn't see that or she didn't care, and she stubbornly refused to listen to Tonks or anyone else on the subject and insisted on referring to Tonks as Nymphadora or "her" or "she" and had even become openly hostile towards Tonks.

Harry was beginning to feel like he didn't even know who Hermione was anymore, he just knew that she wasn't the same girl he had met that first day on the Hogwarts Express - and, if she was...well, that meant that he had never really known her at all.

He had a feeling that the other members of the Secret Order of Harry's Army felt the same way, but what could they do with her? Cast her out when she knew their plans and secrets and risk having her turn traitor? Put up with her even though she was starting to make everyone's life miserable and was being hostile to not only Tonks, but Ron and Harry, too? Keep her locked in the attic until either the war was over or she started behaving rationally again - whichever came first?

No, the Hermione problem was too much. Harry didn't want to think about it anymore, either.

As he stared intently at the ceiling, Harry remembered a tense conversation between Sirius and Lupin that he had overheard bits and pieces of above the din at breakfast. They had been arguing about Lupin's safety and the whole...extermination of werewolves...thing.

From what Harry gathered, in the end Sirius had finally convinced Lupin to move in to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place - which was one of the most magically protected places in all of Wizarding Britain and her many magical realms - so that he could safely hide from and escape the Auror-lead death squads that were set to start patrolling the streets that very night to round up and execute all the werewolves.

Harry swallowed a mouthful of bile.

Things were getting out of hand, fast. He still didn't have a bloody clue how he was supposed to find a cure and save everybody from the bloody Muggle virus, or win the war against Voldemort and the bloody Ministry, or deal with bloody Hermione, and now he had to find a way to save the bloody werewolves, too?

It was too much pressure.

Harry's scar started to hurt for real just thinking about it.

"Ow!" Dudley cried, breaking the silence and Harry's concentration. "Sweetie darling, you really shouldn't leave your wand in your jeans like this, the bloody thing...zapped me or...something." He continued, sitting on the bed next to Harry and handing his cousin the wand that had shocked him so badly that it had set off sparks.

Harry squinted at the wand without taking it or getting up. "That's not my wand - must be Mad Eye's or Snape's, I've been carrying them with me as trophies." He snickered loudly before noticing the hurt expression on his cousin's face.

"Oh Diddykins, I'm not laughing at you, darling." Harry said, sitting up in bed so he could wrap his arms around Dudley.

Now this, he liked a lot more.

But somehow...it still wasn't quite...right.

Oh, for Merlin's sake, why did he still feel so confused and...unsatisfied?

Just then a handsome, fancy looking owl flew in elegantly through the open window. It took a long, hard look at Harry and Dudley sitting together on the bed, holding one another, and hooted angrily as it dropped a letter onto Harry's lap and nipped at Dudley's thigh viciously with its sharp beak before flying expensively away.

"Diddykins! Are you all right?!" Harry asked frantically. He was horrified - the owl had managed to take quite a sizable chunk of Dudley's thigh with it when it flew off and Dudley was bleeding rather profusely. Harry put his hands over the wound to try and stop the flow of blood that pumped violently from it.

Dudley's face drained of all colour and Harry worried that his cousin might faint. He HAD to stop the bleeding.

"Dudley - I need to put more pressure on the wound to try and stop the bleeding, but it's going to really fucking hurt, so you might want to bite down on something. Hard."

Dudley took the wand he'd been gingerly holding between the tips of his fingers, and carefully placed it into his mouth with pale, trembling hands.

"Ready?" Harry asked, looking his terrified cousin in the eyes. Dudley nodded miserably in painful agreement.

"Okay...NOW!" Harry shouted, and he pressed both hands down hard on the wound just as Dudley clamped his teeth down on the wand, squeezing his eyes shut and grimacing in what was obviously excruciating pain.

But as Harry watched, Dudley's expression suddenly changed from one of agonizing pain to blissful relief.

"Dud?" He questioned, worriedly. "Are...are you...okay?"

"It's gone." Dudley said, opening his eyes and smiling at Harry in a way that he never had before.

"What's gone?!" Harry asked, growing frantic - had his cousin finally cracked? Had he broken him?

"The pain...all of it...it's just...gone. You touched me and it was...gone." Dudley beamed at Harry rapturously.

Harry looked from Dudley's almost scarily radiant face to his own hands, which were still clamped firmly on the wound. Taking a deep breath, he carefully lifted his hands from Dudley's thigh to check the vicious owl bite, fully expecting the hideous gash to start gushing again.

Yet, to Harry's surprise, he found that the wound had healed.

Completely.

Like, as if it had never even been there.

Eyes wide and mouth gaping, he stared at the place where the wound should have been, then at his own hands, turning them over and over again and examining them from all angles in stunned disbelief.

No.

No way.

Not even in the magical wizarding world was THIS a thing. That was the utter stuff and nonsense of American Televangelists - not real, serious witches, wizards and sorcerers. And anyway, it wasn't even possible! Not even wizards could heal someone just by touching them! He'd have to be some kind of...Wizard Jesus to pull that off, Harry scoffed.

...

...Waaaaaait...

...Noooooo...

...No way.

Harry shook his head and laughed. No, that just wasn't possible, there had to be some other explanation. He'd have to ask Hermione once she calmed down or was allowed to have visitors in the attic. She'd probably know, she knew bloody EVERYTHING. Or, at least she THOUGHT she did.

It was so bloody annoying.

Harry turned back to Dudley just in time to get a mouthful of his cousin's thick blonde hair for his troubles as Dudley threw himself at him, wrapping his arms round him and burying his head in Harry's neck.

"You really ARE magic!" The boy wept joyously, clinging onto Harry so tightly that he almost couldn't breathe.

Crikey. What was your first clue? Harry thought, rolling his eyes and patting a very wet, weepy and grateful Dudley on the back as his cousin calmed down.

But even as he felt Dudley beginning to unzip his trousers so that he could REALLY show him his appreciation, Harry couldn't stop his eye from wandering hopefully to the letter that the handsome, fancy, violent owl had delivered.

His heart did a back flip as he recognized the Slytherin green ink on the envelope and the elegant handwriting that spelled out his name, and a wicked grin spread slowly across Harry Potter's face.

Now THIS, he liked.